


'Til Death

by tuesday



Category: Rubyquest
Genre: Amnesia, F/M, Horror, Post-Canon, Romance, Temporary Character Death, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 04:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20091058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/pseuds/tuesday
Summary: Ruby remembers.





	'Til Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RoseWithAllHerThorns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseWithAllHerThorns/gifts).

> As I'm sure you can tell from the word count, this is a treat. I hope you enjoy it! I mashed together a few of your requested tags: "Marriage to Stop Eldritch Forces From Re-Entering The World," "Eldritch Marriage Ritual," and "Amnesia Makes Person Forget Their Marriage." This takes up directly from the end of canon.

Memories returned slowly. They didn't feel real, more like dreams and nightmares with all the emotional resonance removed.

"I think I was married," Ruby said one night, head pillowed on Jay's stomach, Tom's head pillowed on hers. They formed an odd triangle. "I remember something about a ceremony … ? I wore white."

"Who were you married to?" Tom asked.

"I don't remember."

Jay didn't say anything, but Jay never said anything. He was a bird who couldn't sing. He'd left that behind in the Glen.

(They'd all left something.)

—

They were on a peninsula. When they ventured far enough up it, there were lights in the distance. Civilization called out to them. Ruby wasn't ready for it. The others must have agreed, because they didn't press on, either.

Ruby went back to the tracks again and again, looking out over the water with a feeling like longing. Most of the people left in the Metal Glen were dead, dying, or otherwise indisposed. No one had been in any shape to follow them. She shouldn't anticipate anyone else coming. She didn't, not when she thought about it.

How she felt differed.

"Who are you waiting for?" Tom asked one afternoon as she leaned against the cart.

"I don't know," she said.

It felt like a lie.

—

She dreamed, a hazy film draped over memories slowly becoming clear.

"There may be a way to stop this," someone said, but she couldn't see his face. "And if not, there may be a way to anchor ourselves to sanity. The cycle doesn't have to continue."

"What do I have to do?" Ruby asked.

Paws reached out to gently caress her face. "How much are you willing to sacrifice?"

"Everything," Ruby said.

And she did. Ruby sacrificed everything.

—

Jay sometimes kept her company. As she sat by the cart, staring across the water, he waded into it. He ducked his head beneath the waves. He stayed under for minutes at a time, but he always came back up eventually.

Tom came by. He had cooked fish wrapped in leaves.

"You should try to eat something." 

"I'm not hungry," Ruby said, but it wasn't true. Her stomach twisted in knots. Inside her was a gaping hole waiting to be filled. She hungered deeply, persistently, but she knew mere morsels wouldn't appease her. Food wouldn't ease this ache. "If I need something, I can forage for myself."

"Okay." Tom's shoulders slumped. "Okay."

He went away. Ruby idly drew circles in the sand. Circles in circles in circles. There was a splash as Jay surfaced once more. Ruby stared past him and into the distance. She was waiting for something. Or maybe something was waiting for her.

Inside, something throbbed like hunger pangs, like a wound, like a heart trying and failing to restart itself in its previous rhythm. Ruby's teeth itched like they wanted sharpening.

She was so hungry it hurt.

—

There was this recurring dream. It could only be a dream. In it, Ruby wore the white of a patient gown. Red wore the white of a lab coat. They stood in front of a stone slab in a cave. Something was written on it. It warned. It welcomed. It wanted to be read.

Ruby held Red's paw in her own. They faced the darkness together.

In the dark, something waited. It watched them without eyes. It spoke in a hundred silent tongues. It bared invisible teeth. It beckoned them forward. It wanted everything, but it was open to making a pact that settled for less. All it required was a binding and two people willing to speak the words.

Ruby was willing. Red was willing. Clinging to one another, they took step after step forward. The darkness swallowed them whole.

—

Ruby still had Red's paw. She'd let the papers drop into the ocean, but she couldn't give this up, a tangible reminder, gruesome and reassuring. It wasn't rotting. It didn't bleed. It hadn't shriveled up or lost moisture. It looked exactly the same as the moment she'd picked it up from the Glen's floor. Sometimes she imagined it was warm with lingering body heat.

"You should bury that," Tom said. 

Tom's eyes were so concerned, open and sincere. He was worried about her. He didn't need to be. Ruby was fine. She was protected. She knew that. She was safe. It was the people around her—

"Or at least burn it."

"It's mine," Ruby said.

That was the end of that.

—

"I would be happy to spend eternity with you," Red told her in her dream-memories. "It's the rest I object to. But needs must when you want to save the world."

Ruby traced the lines of his face, the stretch of his mouth, the sharp points of his teeth.

"Let's hope we both remember this time," he said.

He remembered; she didn't.

But she was remembering now.

—

"I need to go back," Ruby told Tom.

"Ruby, no," Tom said. He didn't understand. He wasn't able to. It was a blessing, a benediction. Ruby and Red had made it so no one else would ever have to know.

"I need to go back," Ruby repeated herself, clutching Red's paw in her own.

"Then I'll go with you," Tom said.

"You can't." Ruby shook her head. "I thought I was escaping, but I was only meant to lead you out."

"And what, you're going back for the rest of them?"

"No." Ruby's gaze was drawn back again and again over the water. "I never really left." 

She couldn't. Not when part of her remained there, waiting under the waves.

—

It wasn't a traditional marriage. They didn't speak of love, only devotion. The pledge of obedience wasn't given to one another. They didn't promise until death; death couldn't part them. 

But there was love. There was devotion. They were not obedient to one another, but they were in this together. Death could not part them.

Death would not part them: Ruby wouldn't let it.

—

Ruby got up in the night and started walking.

Jay was awake. His eyes gleamed in the dark. He watched her go.

—

The Metal Glen welcomed her back like she'd never left. The reception desk was empty now, and tendrils of flesh crept out from the vents, but otherwise it was as she remembered it. The air was sweet with the scent of decomposition. A masked servant waited in the door.

"I remember now," Ruby told him.

The creature wearing Ace bowed what wasn't a head to her as she walked past. Ruby's footsteps echoed in the now cavernous halls. A rent trailed along one wall. Through it, one could peer into eternity so long as they were prepared for eternity to peer back. Ruby ignored it. She'd seen better.

The pieces of Red weren't where she'd left them. The servant had collected them into a pile. The formless mass pulsed and shuddered. It needed its missing piece. Ruby knew how it felt. Gently, reverently, she placed Red's paw in it. She placed a part of herself in with it. In the process, she would get part of herself back.

Marriage was a meeting of two bodies, of two souls. This wasn't a traditional marriage, but they were wed all the same. Nothing could part them now.

The last thing Ruby said before the darkness swallowed her down was: "You're not getting out of this that easily."

—

In her memory, Ruby wore a white patient gown like a wedding dress. Red smiled to see her. She held hope like a bouquet in her heart. It would wither with time, but in the moment, it would see her through. Red held his mouth to her throat like a kiss. They made each other promises even as they promised themselves to the dark, a willing sacrifice.

(They were going to live happily ever after.)

—

"Darling," Red said, blood in his teeth. "You shouldn't have."

Ruby smiled back at him, a hole in her chest from where she'd given him her heart. It wasn't the first time. It wouldn't be the last.

Maybe she'd remember this time. Maybe she wouldn't. They had the rest of their lives to get it right. There was a never-ending supply.

Someday, eventually, they'd get their happy ending. In the meantime, she'd keep trying.


End file.
